KASUR: Hundreds of protesters enraged over the murder of a young girl threw stones at government buildings in Kasur city, Punjab province, for a second day on Thursday, amid growing outrage over the killing.

The father of an 8-year-old girl whose rape and killing shocked the nation accused the police on Thursday of being slow to respond when his daughter went missing in eastern Punjab province.

The father, Anees Ansari, who was on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia with his wife at the time of his daughter’s disappearance, spoke after meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif late on Wednesday.

Shahbaz visited the bereaved family in Kasur at 04:30am and assured that the culprit will be punished at any cost.

The Punjab government has announced a reward of Rs10 million ($90,000) for information leading to the killer’s capture, as well as compensation packages for the protesters killed on Wednesday.

The demonstrators hurled projectiles at a hospital, attacked the home of at least one local politician, and complained of police inaction in the city of Kasur in Punjab province, a day after two protesters were killed when the rallies turned violent.

The outrage has spilled over in Kasur after the body of a child was found in a garbage heap Tuesday, where she is believed to have been dumped after being raped and murdered.

The child, named as Zainab, is the eighth minor to have been raped and murdered in Kasur in the past 12 months, police have said.

“Up to 1,000 protesters are in the streets,” Kasur police spokesman Muhammad Sajid told AFP.

“They have thrown stones on the buildings of the government hospital, police and deputy commissioner’s office... Security is deployed and trying to control the situation.”

The demonstrators had accused police of failing to act over the child murders.

Sajid said that up to 20 suspects had been apprehended “but the investigators have been unable to find any clue so far.”

“Police are not cooperating with us,” Ghulam Rasool, an uncle of Zainab, told AFP.

“We want justice. We want the culprit to be brought in front of us. We don’t want an innocent to be presented as the culprit and killed just to wash this case.”

On Wednesday at least two protesters were killed when police fired into the crowd of demonstrators as they tried to storm a government building in Kasur, a senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Anger at police has been fuelled by Kasur’s infamy as the site of what has been dubbed Pakistan’s largest child abuse scandal.

POSTMORTEM

In the meantime, a postmortem examination conducted on girl, Zainab, whose body was recovered from a trash heap in Kasur days after she went missing, suggests she may have been raped before she was strangled to death.

DHQ Medico Legal Officer Dr Quratulain Attique said the examination revealed the minor girl had died of strangulation.

There were visible marks of torture on the child’s face, congestion in her muscles, and her tongue was badly bruised and injured as it was pressed between her teeth, the doctor said adding that the hyoid bone was fractured, indicating strangulation.

She said the postmortem examination was performed the same day Zainab’s body was recovered on Tuesday and an initial examination suggested she may have been dead for two to three days.

Meanwhile, the funeral prayers were offered on Thursday for two persons, who were killed in police firing during the protest on Wednesday.

Zainab went missing on Jan.4, which means she may have been held captive by her abductors for two to four days before she was killed.

Although the doctor did not confirm that the minor was raped, findings in the autopsy suggest that she may have been sexually assaulted.

Her hymen was ruptured, and there was also evidence to suggest the child had been sodomised. There was mud, fecal matter and blood found on her body, the doctor confirmed, and samples of semen, vaginal fluid and blood were collected from her body.

The samples have been sent to a lab in Lahore for testing, Dr Attique said, adding that the process of testing can take up to three months.

She said that this is the fourth such case she has seen in the seven months at DHQ Kasur. Of the four cases, only one child survived the ordeal. The findings in all cases were identical to those in Zainab’s case.